Los Angeles February 2023 - 1: Frieze and Felix

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This year, as Dastan, Tehran, were showing Mamali Shafahi alongside Iranian duo Peybak, and Mamali was also curating a group show of Iranian artists, I decided to use some of my soon-to-expire airmiles to fly to Los Angeles for the Frieze and Felix art fairs.


Housed at Santa Monica airport, in a large 'tent' structure and an old hangar, Frieze turned out to be, to my mind, surprisingly bland and conventional. The few exceptions were mostly galleries I've bought from or have friends at - Dastan, Antenna Space, Gaga, Mendes Wood... which raises the issue of my objectivity: I don't know if I liked them because I know them, or the other way round. One I did like, however, without having any relationship with it, was Jeffrey Deitch, showing a fun exhibition of works by Peter Shire (see above), just next to Dastan.

Here, The Art Newspaper includes Mamali Shafahi at Dastan among its photo picks from Frieze LA.

And here, artnet.com features Mamali among its artists to watch for.

I went to Frieze a couple of times and did a couple of tours, but in the end, gave up taking photos (I didn't take any at all in the hangar) as there was little I really wanted to keep a trace of: for me, in Los Angeles, the best was elsewhere.











Felix took place in Hollywood, at the Roosevelt Hotel, in the 'cabanas' around the pool (more like a series of mini-suites, with the beds removed) and on two floors upstairs. This was more the kind of fair I like, with 'young' galleries showing younger, edgier artists, some of whom (galleries and artists) I know well. But by the time I got there I was already worn out (art fair fatigue again), so I kept mainly, though not exclusively, to the pool area, and only 'browsed' round the booths upstairs.









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